The polarized reaction Taylor Swift creates among her critics and devoted fans isn't accidental. Like other ultra-successful pop stars — Madonna, Beyoncé, Britney Spears — Swift has created a persona that people respond passionately to.
Swift's persona has always been one of all-American relatability and perceived accessibility. Primarily, Taylor Swift has always publicly positioned herself as a good friend. The 1989 album and tour, Instagram posts about her famed Fourth of July parties, paparazzi shots, and awards show cutaways entirely devoted to Swift's friends, including Selena Gomez, Gigi Hadid, and Blake Lively.
Adding to that lore, Swift's songs are peppered with Easter eggs, inside jokes, and tidbits that only fans who truly know her — her best friends — would understand. If you really know her music, you really know who Swift is and her friendship seems as obtainable as it is fantastically desirable.
Swift has also long presented herself as the industry's underdog.
This part of her persona goes back to the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, when Kanye interrupted her speech to tell her that she did not in fact have the best video of the year. It continued with her response to the jokes made at her expense and the lazy reductionist reviews of her music being about the men she's dated. There have also been moments where Swift has spoken up and addressed concerns like sexual harassment, artists getting paid for their music, and the music business's misogyny.
People want to protect underdogs. Friends want to defend their friends.
The thing about these personas is that in order to be successful, they need something to push back against. You can't be friends with everyone. You can't be an underdog if no one is dragging you down. Swift's personas need criticism as much as they need loyalty.
Is it possible to take a nuanced — or dare I say, neutral — stance amid all this?
Maybe once upon a time it was (and a Reddit forum called SwiftlyNeutral is trying to keep that possibility alive). But generally? Not so much. On social media, where stan culture dominates the conversation, all different types of Swift criticism and praise get flattened into very simple and caustic pro or anti arguments.
"There are so many people out there participating in the discourse where anything less than sheer adoration is grounds for an attack," pop culture expert DJ Louis told me. "Taylor and Beyoncé and all pop stars are all worthy of praise and criticism — we should want that to exist in our culture. But I feel like we're just getting into a situation right now where it's nearly impossible to have any sort of nuanced cultural debate."
Perhaps the silliest thing about all this chatter is that it doesn't affect Taylor Swift herself. All the things we feel about Taylor Swift end up saying more about us — our hangups, our desires, what we like and don't like about ourselves — than anything about her.
—Alex Abad-Santos, senior correspondent
